


guiding our ship around this hellish shoal

by statusquo_ergo



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Coda, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Prison, post 6x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Mike's priorities change a little after Danbury.





	guiding our ship around this hellish shoal

**Author's Note:**

> A not-particularly-radical divergence beginning immediately post-6x09 and completely disregarding 6x10.

Mike feels the smile gradually fall from his face as he looks into Rachel’s kind eyes. They stand, holding each other, and time passes without the threat of a crushing deadline for the first time in forever.

“Mike,” Rachel says with that disbelieving little laugh she gets sometimes. It means plenty; “I can’t believe you’re free,” “I’m so glad you’re here,” “I love you so much.” She’s not difficult to understand.

“Yeah,” he says, reviving his grin for a moment before he drops his hands. It’s only midday, midafternoon, maybe, but he’s so tired.

She nods as though she understands. “Come on,” she says, opening the car door for him. “Let’s go home.”

Home.

In the backseat of Harvey’s Lexus, Mike drops his hands to his sides, staring out the window as the barren road blurs past; Rachel watches him with a giddy smile on her face and laces their fingers together, pressing her palm to his.

He flinches when their skin touches, and she only holds on tighter.

\---

The apartment isn’t quite as Mike remembers it. Familiar, definitely, but everything a little more orderly, a little more put away; occupied but not lived-in, warm but not exactly welcoming. He should ask permission before he takes food from the refrigerator.

Shedding his suit jacket, he drapes it over the back of the sofa, which helps a little.

Rachel steps up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and doing her best to rest her chin on his shoulder as he surveys their kingdom.

“I thought about you all the time,” she confides.

He hums his agreement. “I couldn’t wait to be out of there,” he says, which is true. “I couldn’t wait to see you again,” he says, which is a bit less so.

She giggles near his ear. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.” He smiles, thinking back. “That night…that wasn’t nearly enough.”

“Not even close.”

Putting his hands over hers, he finds that he doesn’t much want to talk anymore about the things they lost. “You’ve been keeping busy,” he tries instead, turning into and then out of her embrace as they come to face one another. “Talk to me about the Innocence Project.”

“Oh—it…it’s ongoing.” She nods with determination, projecting confidence in a way with which he’s intimately familiar that means she doesn’t really feel it. “It’s tough, but I’m working on it. He’s innocent. I know he is. I just have to make everyone else believe it, too.”

He expected nothing less. “And here I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to use the liar-liar-pants-on-fire defense.”

She looks at him strangely, uncertain whether or not to be offended, and he shakes his head.

“So I heard you held your own against Jessica,” he says, trying to come up with something to say that won’t dead-end the conversation.

That was the wrong thing. Her nostrils flare, her brow furrowing.

“Where did you hear that?”

It’s not that big a deal. “Harvey mentioned something,” he waves it off.

“What?” she blurts out. “When?”

“He, uh, he swung by the prison last night.” Mike shrugs, sits on the sofa and drums his fingers against the cushions; the point had been to move _away_ from this. “After the thing with Gallo, just for a minute.”

Rachel steps around the aesthetically worn armchair and sits carefully, her legs tilted at an angle. “You didn’t want to wait and hear about it from me?”

Because that’s been an option. “I…would’ve loved to hear about it from you,” he hedges, “but it’s been taking up pretty much all your time, hasn’t it. I mean, I get it, right, a client on meth, a dead witness, everything you did to get the execution date pushed back… You really hit the jackpot with this one.” His smile doesn’t feel as encouraging as he’s aiming for; in his defense, though, he’s so tired. “I’m proud of you,” he rallies, “you’ve been handling everything like a pro.”

She isn’t buying it. “Mike…” she trails off, taking a minute to recover. “Mike, you know I would’ve loved to spend more time with you while you were away.”

“‘Away,’” he snaps, a knee-jerk reaction. “Rachel, I was in _prison._ ”

“I know that,” she soothes. “I tried to see you as soon as I possibly could, Donna even got me on your guest list early, but your visitors’ privileges were suspended for two weeks; when I told them I was your fiancée, they said it didn’t matter, and then I said I was your lawyer, but they had Harvey’s name on file and there was nothing I could do.”

Obviously, who doesn’t know that part. “Yeah, I understand that; I appreciate it, you know, thanks for trying—”

“‘Thanks for _trying_ ’ _?_ ” Rachel mimics, digging her nails into the armrests. “Mike, Harvey wasn’t even going to try to make _any_ deal with Gallo until I told him to.”

Shaking his head, Mike clicks his tongue and looks at the wall. “After I told him _not_ to.”

“Right,” she says, “because that was such a great idea.”

It might’ve come off as a teasing jab in any other situation, or even in this situation at another moment, on another day, but he’s had it up to here with all the double-talk and backroom deals and shady shit he suffered through to buy his freedom, and really, this has been building for a lot longer than either of them would like to admit.

“This is kind of what I’m getting at, though,” he says, bracing his elbows on his knees and looking at her through narrowed eyes. “Aside from peer-pressuring Harvey into trying to deal with Gallo, did you do any actual work to help get me out?”

Her expression is an even mix of confusion and disgust. “I told you I wasn’t allowed to see you,” she says incredulously.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “for the first two weeks. But, I mean, you could’ve come by after that—you didn’t need to wait for Harvey to bring _me_ to _you_ , and,” come to think of it, “you wouldn’t’ve needed to see me at all to help Harvey out with the office work side of things; I mean most of the stuff he did, he did here in the city.”

“And when exactly was I supposed to do that?”

He shrugs, a little spasm in the line of his shoulders. “You seem to have found some free time for Leonard Bailey.”

It’s a low blow, and he has no right to throw it, but it’s been a hell of a day, week, month, year, and it has to get out there at some point or another.

Thumping her palms down on the armrests, Rachel pushes herself to her feet and paces a few steps to the left, a few to the right, not quite sure what to do with her body but too anxious to sit still. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing right now,” she bites out. “Mike, I needed something to focus on to keep from losing my _mind._ ” She faces him, her index finger pressed demonstratively to her temple and her eyes wide and a bit crazed. She’s been waiting for this, too. “Leonard Bailey’s case was something for me to fight for, a laundry list of stupid mistakes that were sending an innocent man to his death, a wrong that I could set right. I would’ve thought that you of all people would understand that!”

The thing is, he should understand it. She’s handling the case just the way he would—well. Might have. Back in the day.

“I get it,” he says, clasping his hands as they fall to his lap. “I do. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last five years, it’s that you can’t save everyone, no matter how much you want to or how hard you try, and sometimes you need to sit back and figure out what your priorities are.” Hunching his shoulders, he looks at the wall over her head and braces himself: “Or at least what they should be.”

Pause.

“Are you saying that you aren’t my priority?” she accuses then, grabbing his shoulder; he jerks back, a nervous twitch, and she grabs the other shoulder too, arching her back to try to catch his eye. “I was a _wreck_ when you went to prison! I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on anything—my schoolwork, your case, the firm, the Innocence Project, _anything._ ” She shakes him, just a little, and his stomach turns nauseously as he resists the impulse to lash out. “If all I’d had to think about was you in there, trying to survive, Mike, I _couldn’t._ ”

“But that’s _exactly_ what I’m saying!” he retorts, standing and knocking away her grip as she rises with him. “You wouldn’t have been thinking about me trying to survive in there if you’d been helping Harvey find a way to get me _out!_ ”

“Mike,” she says, trying to even out her voice but unable to get rid of the last traces of angry tremor, “all I’ve ever wanted was to be with you, and it was killing me that I couldn’t.” She reaches for his hand again and he wills himself not to recoil. “Please tell me you understand.”

So it’s come to this.

The entirety of mass media had Mike convinced that the post-prison lovers’ reunion should involve a lot less skittish twitching and a lot more life-affirming sex; fewer pent-up arguments and more gushing declarations of affection, not so much a feeling of alienation as one of returning to the place he belongs. “It’s so good to be home,” he was counting on that.

Up yours, consumer culture.

“I…I do,” he says finally, fumbling badly for the right words. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he really doesn’t. “But that’s… I don’t know if that’s really true, do you?” She’s a smart woman, he can’t be the only one who sees this. “You’ve wanted to be a lawyer for god knows how long, and you and me…”

He catches a glimpse of her crestfallen expression, and it gives him pause even as it spurs him on.

“Look, Rachel, I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself,” he says with all the sincerity he can force. “I’m glad you kept your head above water while I was at Danbury, and I’m glad you’re so passionate about getting your degree, about this case you’re on.”

Wrap it up, Mike, come on.

“And I know you’re hurting, I know this is a shitty time for this conversation to happen. But you know what,” he shakes his head, “I can’t help thinking that even though I’m not your first priority—it’s…it’s okay. Really. Right now, you’ve gotta focus on you.”

Meeting her gaze intently, he balls his hands into fists and then makes a conscious effort to relax them.

“But even though I’m not at the top of your list, right now, after everything that’s happened, I need to be at the top of _somebody’s._ ”

Her lips part before any words are prepared, her eyes filling with tears even as she blinks them back furiously, narrowing her gaze and willing herself to remain angry before she breaks. Some ingrained instinct tells him to apologize, to comfort her, but it’s a little late for that to mean anything.

“Are you saying,” she says finally, rage simmering below the surface, “that you don’t want to be with me?”

Cut to the bone, thanks for your help.

He takes a breath and sticks his hands in his pockets, casting his eyes to the floor.

“Maybe we missed our shot.”

\---

It doesn’t cross Harvey’s mind for even a second that someone banging loudly on his door at nine fifty-three at night could be considered a weird event. It’s Mike, he knows without quite knowing how, which means it’s important, and he opens the door without concern over the impression he’ll give with his black Henley and grey sweats.

Sure enough.

Harvey steps aside to admit Mike entrance to the foyer; it takes a moment for the disorientation to clear from his eyes, the mild suspicion to leave his tense posture. When the door falls shut, Mike sags back against it; Harvey waits for him to collect himself and for once he doesn’t press.

It’s only when the sound of Harvey’s watch ticking pointedly breaks the silence that he becomes a little impatient.

“Harvey,” Mike says then, looking up at him as though he’s the answer to every question Mike’s ever asked, as well as a few he hasn’t.

“Hey,” Harvey says with a little smile. “It’s good to see you.”

The gratitude in Mike’s face is nearly overwhelming, and concern begins to creep in over Harvey’s thrill at his being there at all.

They did it: He’s a free man. They really did it.

So what the hell is he doing _here?_

“Are you okay?” Harvey asks then, going to touch Mike’s arm and diverting at the last second to rest his elbow on the wall; he’s dealt with enough former (and current) prisoners to know that no matter how good the front, the constant alertness, the fear of violence takes awhile to fall away. “What happened?”

Mike shakes his head and stands up straight, moving cautiously into the living room. Harvey follows curiously, walking around Mike to the couch and hoping he’ll take the hint to follow.

“Harvey,” Mike says—he does follow, but doesn’t sit quite yet. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate all the work you did, and all the time you put in to get me out early, because I do, god, I’m indebted to you forever.”

Harvey shakes his head a little; credit where credit is due, after all. “You did just as much.”

“Come on,” Mike scowls, “that’s bullshit. Nothing I did would’ve meant anything without you.”

“Alright, let’s pretend that’s true,” Harvey allows, because it kind of is. “What about it?”

“It’s just…” Mike sighs, turning in a little half circle and finally falling to sit at the opposite end of the couch, dragging one of the throw pillows there over his stomach. “You know I’m never gonna be able to practice law again.” Harvey goes to interrupt, but Mike barrels on: “Even if I can get into law school, anywhere, much less Harvard, and even if I get my JD, it won’t matter; we both know no one would ever hire me.”

Harvey answers unthinkingly:

“I would.”

“Yeah,” Mike dismisses, “like PSL needs that kind of dirty laundry.”

This conversation has layers on top of its layers, and even though Harvey knows it’s serious, knows it should be at least a little worrying—there are a lot of uncontrollable variables in play, which are his least favorite kind—he feels mostly at ease, leaning into the cushions and putting his arms over the back of the couch, hoping Mike will pick up on the mood. It’ll take time, but they’ll figure something out; that’s what they do.

“What are you getting at?”

Mikes smiles, a little self-deprecating.

“Why did you do it?”

The question, inevitable in hindsight, hadn’t previously crossed Harvey’s mind long enough for him to prepare a response. He knows the answer, of course; it’s so obvious, surely Mike would never need to ask. After everything they’ve been through together, all the sacrifices they’ve made for each other, did he think for even an instant that Harvey would abandon him in his hour of need?

Replaying the beginning of their conversation, though, Harvey thinks he might understand.

It’s all so stupid.

“Is that all you think you are to me?” he asks, aiming for tender and coming out closer to dubious. “A valuable asset?”

“I mean, I know we’re friends,” Mike assures him at once. “I think we’re friends, I’m pretty sure we’re still friends, but what you did was like, above and beyond the call of duty.”

Harvey hadn’t thought of it that way at the time, but maybe in the right light…

“Way beyond,” Mike goes on, sitting up a little straighter as the pillow falls aside. “You snuck me out of prison so I could spend a few hours with Rachel. You represented Sutter; you represented _Gallo._ You colluded with Cahill, you double-crossed him, you made— I don’t know how many deals you made with him, probably about a million. I don’t even wanna think about how much sleep you must’ve sacrificed to get all that shit done.”

About a week’s worth, all told, but it seems like a pretty small price to pay.

“And for what?” Mike asks with a weary sort of desperation. “We both know I’m guilty, I deserved what I got; I would’ve deserved to serve out the whole sentence, and even now I’m just another guy who used to work at Pearson Specter Litt who doesn’t know where his life is supposed to go from here.”

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how low Mike’s opinion of himself can be, especially when he thinks he’s alone. Harvey aborts another reflex to touch him, to grab his arm or put a hand on his shoulder, and shrugs exaggeratedly as though the very notion is absurd. (Which it is.)

“Are you kidding,” he says flippantly, “you can go anywhere you want to from here. I told you, if you want to get your JD, I’d hire you in a second, fuck what everyone else thinks. If you don’t, I’d hire you anyway, we’ll call you a consultant, pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. You wanna go some other direction, that’s okay too; you’re a genius, remember? You’ll figure it out, and I’m sure Rachel will support you in whatever you want to go after.” He stretches his smile a little for Mike’s benefit at the mention of Rachel’s name and goes on more fervently: “And so will I. You have to know that.”

Mike laughs a little. “I’m not so sure Rachel is going to support me in anything for awhile.”

Aha.

Harvey puts on his most concerned expression and takes his arms off the backrest.

“What happened?”

Rolling his eyes skyward, Mike leans back and stares up at the ceiling. “I think I walked out on her.”

Harvey wasn’t aware that was something a person could do by accident.

“You think?”

Mike huffs out through his nose and jostles his posture uncertainly. “We were talking about everything that was going on while I was at Danbury,” he explains, “and I asked her why she hadn’t helped you with my case, why she hadn’t been to see me after the two week suspension expired, and she… I don’t even know.” Lowering his eyes to the floor, he slouches down and picks the poor little pillow back up to squeeze it between his palms. “Something about the way she just swanned out of your car when you picked me up, the way she’s been acting—for awhile now, actually, we just… We haven’t been a good fit in a long time.”

Harvey hums a quiet note.

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not, you’ve never liked her.”

Harvey’s next words have been carefully planned for some time; it’s nice to finally have an opportunity to use them.

“I like that she makes you happy.”

Mike, the ungrateful bastard, seems disappointed by the choice.

“Is that why you brought her with you?”

“No,” Harvey says immediately, hoping he isn’t walking into some horrible misunderstanding. “Mike, I brought her with me because she’s your fiancée and she loves you. I may have been the one to pick you up, but that didn’t give me any right to monopolize your time.”

Mike nods. “So you brought her because you thought it would make me happy.”

“I thought you deserved it after everything you’d been through.”

“You didn’t think being with you would’ve been enough?”

It had crossed his mind for a moment there, in the early hours, but Harvey generally makes it his business to be a realist; when a man who’s engaged to be married is sprung from the joint, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who he’d prefer to have waiting for him on the other side of the gates.

“I saw your face when you saw her,” he says instead, “don’t act like you didn’t like it.”

“Yeah, sure, at the _time,_ ” Mike presses, “but Harvey, you gotta know that getting out of prison a year and a half early right after nearly being shivved is a pretty emotional thing for a guy to go through. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

“Would you have preferred I leave her home?”

“That’s not—“ Mike brings his hands up haltingly and then drops them back to his lap, finally pushing the little pillow away and sighing loudly as he searches for the right way to transcribe his thoughts. “I really appreciate that you did that for me,” he begins, “but it—it’s more like accomplishing a goal, you know? I mean I loved her so much, or I thought I did, and then I left her at the altar on my way to prison, and I said it was to protect her but that’s just a bullshit excuse, isn’t it? And my first night in, Gallo used her to threaten me, and then you broke me out to see her, and right at the end, Kevin wished us well…”

He pauses for breath more than anything, the floodgates seemingly opened at last, and Harvey waits in silence.

“She was like a foregone conclusion,” Mike admits, “the person, the thing I was always going back to no matter what. But then I did, and I saw her, and at first it was great, but then we got home and we started talking, and, I don’t know, it was like…we were these two people who used to have all these things in common, but at some point we’d branched off in completely different directions and now the things dividing us are bigger than the ones keeping us together. And that person I thought I loved so much is just…gone.” He looks to Harvey imploringly, a plea for understanding without pity, without shame. “You know what I mean?”

Just how the hell is Harvey supposed to respond to that?

“I told you so” would be the most satisfying, but Mike doesn’t even sort of deserve it. And Harvey _does_ know what he means; he went through something similar with Scottie, though it wasn’t quite the same, and who hasn’t lost friends after simply growing apart, starting off at the same place and then moving on along different life tracks? It happens all the time (though Mike doesn’t need to hear that, either).

In the end, he says the first thing that comes to mind in complete sentences.

“It’s a disaster, Robbie. She’ll bring you nothing but heartache.”

Mike puts his hand over his eyes and falls back to the cushions, smiling at something stupid. “In the end, you’ll get bit,” he replies as though the most important thing about his situation is the irony.

There’s not much to say, so Harvey doesn’t.

The quiet is uncomfortable for about thirty seconds before Mike sits up, turning to face him with more intention than Harvey thought he had left.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Which question?”

He isn’t going to get a free pass on this one.

“Why did you do it?”

Why, indeed.

As Mike sits there, sinking into Harvey’s hideously expensive couch with dark smudges under his slightly reddened eyes, his short hair somehow still a mess, his hands clenching and unclenching the fabric of the same designer pants he wore into Danbury so long ago, the same ones he wore out only this afternoon, Harvey makes a decision. If Mike hasn’t realized it by now, he probably never will, but it’s time to stop pretending this is something that it isn’t.

“How could I not?” Harvey asks. “It’s my fault you were in there and it was my job to get you out.”

“Harvey,” Mike warns. “Come on.”

“I’m serious,” he insists. “Mike, Sheila might’ve turned you in to Gibbs but I was the one who put you in that position in the first place, and I always look out for my own.”

“Are you shitting me right now?”

“I definitely am not.”

Harvey knows where the conversation is going to go from here; they haven’t had this argument for awhile, but they’ve definitely had it before.

“Harvey,” Mike begins in a familiar tone, “if you hadn’t taken the world’s biggest risk that day and hired me, do you know where I’d be? Dead in a ditch, probably, or in a prison way more dangerous than Danbury for something a lot worse than fraud and serving the entirety of a sentence a hell of a lot longer than two years.”

Maybe not this argument exactly.

“I never would’ve become somebody I could be proud of, somebody my grandmother could be proud of before—” Mike cuts himself off and Harvey tries not to wince. “And, and I wouldn’t have anyone like Jessica, or Donna, or Rachel, or Benjamin, or even Louis watching my back, giving me something to look forward to when I got out, _if_ I got out. And I definitely wouldn’t have anyone like you.”

Harvey tries to smile, succeeding only partly. “You sure that’s such a good thing?”

“Oh my god.”

Harvey sniffs as Mike falls back and throws up his arms; their wires are dangerous close to getting crossed right now, and he isn’t in the mood.

“I need you, Mike,” he says artlessly. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you being locked away in there, all alone—I know, I know,” he interrupts himself before Mike has the chance, “you had Kevin, but making friends inside, picking up strays wherever you go, it’s…not the same.” Taking a moment to collect himself, he drops his hand to the cushions within Mike’s reach, just in case Mike wants to ground himself, or to ground Harvey.

“Every time I saw you in there,” he goes on, “every time I had to sign in, every time I had to be escorted to a little box with a locked door just to talk to you, it was killing me. After all the good you’ve done, after everything you’ve lost, everything you’ve survived, I was just waiting for it to start destroying you.” He shakes his head; not done, just hold on.

“But you didn’t let it. Mike, you’re probably the only guy in the world who could actually use his bleeding heart as a tool to help him survive in prison.” He smiles ruefully, leaning into the armrest. “I’m not sure I mean that as a compliment, but you’re probably taking it that way, aren’t you?”

Mike watches him.

He doesn’t take his hand, doesn’t touch him or indeed move at all, but he watches. The scrutiny is so intense that Harvey is afraid any motion, no matter how subtle, will give something away and he won’t be able to get it back. He can’t afford to be out of control; not right now. Not after that.

Mike watches him, and he doesn’t breathe.

Cars honk on the streets below, and a bicycle bell rings loudly.

“Get up,” Mike says at last. Harvey side-eyes him, but Mike heaves himself off the couch and waves at Harvey to do the same. “Come on,” he goads, “up and at ‘em.”

Harvey stands cautiously, facing Mike with his hands on his hips.

“You ready?” Mike asks, and Harvey arches his eyebrows as Mike positions himself, feet shoulder-width apart and fingers flexing.

“I have no idea,” Harvey replies honestly, and Mike rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be such a wimp,” he mocks, but Harvey doesn’t have time to conceive of a biting enough retort before Mike throws his arms around his shoulders, pressing his face into the crook of his neck. Harvey’s arms come up reflexively, resting on Mike’s back and holding him steady as his face tilts down against Harvey’s skin, and Mike sighs, deep and shuddering and fragile.

Harvey doesn’t know what to say as Mike holds on for what feels like dear life.

Time passes without consequence for the first time in forever.

“Thank you,” Mike says—at least, Harvey’s pretty sure, but as he hasn’t lifted his face from Harvey’s skin, it’s impossible to be certain.

“Any time, rookie,” Harvey says softly, tilting his head against Mike’s, and Mike holds him tighter.

They part eventually, and though Harvey’s instinct is to free Mike, to remove his hands from his back, Mike keeps his grip on Harvey’s shoulders and meets his wary gaze.

“I can’t go back there,” he says softly, as though the realization has just struck him. “I don’t have a home anymore.”

Harvey nods.

“I know.”

Mike laughs strangely, more resigned than amused. “Just like old times.”

It takes a lot of effort for Harvey to refrain from smacking him upside the head.

“Stay here,” he offers, more command than suggestion, but Mike shakes his head wildly.

“Oh god, Harvey, no,” he says, finally moving his hands. “You’ve done too much already, I’m going to my grave in debt to you as it is.”

“Mike.” This time Harvey does take his shoulder, because he needs to and frankly Mike started it. “What part of this are you still not understanding? Do I have to draw up a contract, do we need to put this in writing?”

“Harvey…”

“I’m serious.” He looks Mike in the eye with as much focus as he can manage, feeling his walls begin to splinter up the middle as Mike’s anxiety becomes more blatant every second. “I meant what I said. I need you. I need you to be okay and I need to know you’re safe, and if that means looking out for you and taking care of you while you get back on your feet, then guess what, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Mike looks as shell-shocked as Harvey has ever seen him, or possibly anyone, as though something incredible has just happened, something life-altering. He wonders if this is the post-imprisonment breakdown he’s awaited, the delayed reaction he’s been looking for. Wonders what to expect before he remembers not to let that limit him.

Then Mike steels himself and steps back, out of Harvey’s reach, his hands held before his chest in a mockery of a defensive posture as he screws his courage.

“When I was talking to Rachel this evening, before I left,” he says, measured and stiff, “when I told her why I was going. I said it was because we’d missed our shot.”

“There’s more than one option when you’re staring down the barrel of a .45,” Harvey says as his nerves begin to rile. Mike smiles, thank god, laughing quietly at the reminder.

“A hundred and forty-six,” he agrees. “But that wasn’t the only thing I said; I told her that I need to be with somebody who’s going to be able to put me first for a little while, who’s going to be there for me while I’m trying to figure out who I am now, and what I want to do with my life.”

Harvey knows where Mike is headed because it’s obvious, has no idea what he’s going to say because no matter how obvious it seems, it can’t possibly be real; he crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t interrupt, agonizingly curious and fearfully suspicious and needing so, so badly to hear what comes next.

Mike shakes his head a little, coughs a muffled laugh and scuffs his shoe against the floor.

“Harvey,” he says stoically, “you meant what you said, well, so did I. What you’ve done for me, the work, the time, the effort you’ve put in, the sleep you lost—not just for Danbury, but in all the years I’ve known you, you’ve always, always had my back and it goes…way beyond what anyone deserves from their boss, much less what I deserve from you.”

“Mike—”

Mike holds up his hands. “Shut up a second. If I don’t say this now, I’m pretty sure I never will.”

Oh, god.

“Harvey—I am so in love with you.”

“Mike—”

“And I can handle it if you aren’t,” Mike barrels on. “I can take it if you kick me out, I completely understand, but I can’t pretend I don’t feel this way, I can’t pretend I’m over you—”

“‘Over me’?” Harvey cuts in, finally catching a break as Mike begins shifting his weight uncertainly forward and back. “Mike. What are you talking about?”

The tiredness in Mike’s eyes, the certainty that this is a fool’s errand puts another crack in Harvey’s defenses, and he wants to say yes, wants to finish this thing that they’ve started, but isn’t this the worst possible time?

“I don’t even know,” Mike admits. “Love at first sight?”

Harvey’s shoulders sag and he shoves his hand into his pocket. “Mike, come on.”

“Okay, fine, but what do you want me to say?” Mike asks, tensing warily and bracing for impact. “That you’ve done more for me than anyone else ever has? That you’ve put your ass on the line for me more times than I deserve, since way before I might’ve deserved any of it? That you make me work harder than I’ve ever worked, or wanted to work, on anything my entire life, or that you make me a better person, you make me want to _make_ something of myself?”

Spinning a few degrees away, he presses his palms to his eyes and sighs again.

“Harvey,” he murmurs, sounding like he’s speaking to himself. “Do me one more favor, alright, and just tell me to go.”

Harvey doesn’t tell him to go.

In fact, Harvey doesn’t tell him anything.

What he does do is walk to the wall of windows, looking out on the offensively unchanged city as though the entire world hasn’t just been twisted inside out and upside down.

To make up for the silence, Mike starts talking as though he’s being paid for it.

“From the time I was a little kid, ever since the car crash, I thought it was stupid to have goals—ambitions—because life didn’t have room for that sort of thing, you know, it’s all just about making do with what you’ve got. And it was okay because what I had was actually pretty good, compared to a lot of other people, Grammy and my health and all that and I’d always known I wasn’t going to be at the top of the heap or anything, so it’s not like I was disappointed. And then all of a sudden I crashed into the Chilton and I met you and I started thinking that maybe it was okay to want to have a little more, to be better than I am, maybe it was possible to have it all, even for just a little while, that even when it ended it would all have been worth it because—”

“For god’s sake, Mike!”

The distance is too far, the move too abrupt, but he’s Harvey goddamn Specter and he makes it work as he stalks to Mike and cradles his face in his hands, pulling them together and kissing him for all he’s worth and then some. Mike gets his moment to be off-balance, his moment to be thunderstruck before he settles his arms around Harvey’s shoulders, drawing them closer and sinking into the embrace in a perfect fit, exactly where he belongs.

They eventually part to breathe, just a little heavier than normal, and Mike smiles like he’s about to wake up after the best part of a good dream.

“We still playing hoops tomorrow night?”

Harvey smirks, rests his forehead against Mike’s.

“You’re a lousy fucking softball player.”

The comfort, the sense of absolute rightness lasts only a few more seconds before Harvey pushes back, shaking his head; out of the corner of his eye, he catches Mike’s bafflement and tries to pretend he missed it.

“I—I can’t, I can’t do this to you.”

“ _What?_ ”

He doesn’t want to break the moment, doesn’t want to end them before they begin, but Harvey needs Mike to understand, needs to remind them both why this has never really been an option.

“Look, Mike, it might not have been the right time for us before, or maybe we were making up excuses, but you just got out of prison, you _just_ walked out on your fiancée, and if you think it’s the right time _now,_ then I don’t know what to tell you.”

Mike’s eager willingness, the hope in his eyes breaks his heart, but fuck, Harvey can’t let this happen to them.

“You said it yourself, you’re not thinking straight, and I can’t drag you into something you’ll regret a week from now because I don’t think I’d be able to let you go.”

For a moment, it seems like Mike is going to accept the argument; he takes a step back, the fight going out of him as he remembers, oh yeah, I gave this out, this is what I prepared for. Then the exact terms of Harvey’s rejection hit him and he fixes Harvey with such a deadpan look that it would be funny if the stakes weren't so high.

“Alright, first of all, I said I wasn’t thinking straight when you picked me up _from prison,_ ” Mike ticks off. “After nearly being _murdered._ ” Harvey shakes his head, but Mike isn’t phased. “And second,” he raises two fingers for emphasis, “I’ve seen you at your best, I’ve seen you at your worst, and not for one _instant_ have I regretted standing by you. Harvey.” Mike puts his hands on Harvey’s biceps, pinning him in place and locking their gazes. “I am deeply, _deeply_ in love with you. I can’t tell you when it started, but I do know one thing for sure, and that is this: It’s not going to stop.”

It’s a persuasive argument; Harvey’s proud of Mike’s conciseness, although the sincerity is all his own.

And isn’t that exactly the problem?

Harvey smiles shallowly.

“You’re too good for me, Mike.” He shakes his head; it’s his last line of defense, a gasping struggle to the finish line, but he has to put it out there. “I can’t cut you down like that.”

Mike slides his hands up to Harvey’s neck, skims his thumbs along his cheekbones.

“I’ve got some bad news for you,” Mike says lowly. “Incontrovertible evidence has been uncovered that you, too, actually give a shit about people.”

“Oh yeah?” Harvey challenges, his smile quirking at the corners when Mike nods, shuffling a step closer.

“If it please the court,” he murmurs, “the prosecution would like to present himself as Exhibit A.”

God, it’s so ridiculous, this whole night has been so bizarre, so contrary to everything he’s come to expect. Harvey laughs, honestly laughs, his heart pounding as the walls around it come tumbling down and he leans in, nosing Mike into the proper alignment to kiss him again. It’s sweet and tender, like a confirmation, like the start of a really good idea.

When they come apart this time, Harvey lifts his hand to the back of Mike’s head, threading his fingers through his hair and smiling a little stupidly.

“You’re an idiot,” he says. At Mike’s nervous expression, he presses their lips together again, just a moment.

“Thank you.”

Mike smiles a tired smile. Okay. It's okay.

_Thank you for everything._

**Author's Note:**

> "What a relief. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to use the liar-liar-pants-on-fire defense." _A Few Good Men_ (1992)  
>  "It's disaster, Robbie. She'll bring you nothing but heartache." _Birdman of Alcatraz_ (1962)  
>  "You may get away with it once or even a hundred times. But in the end, you'll get bit." _The Green Mile_ (1999)  
>  "We still playing hoops tomorrow night?" _A Few Good Men_ (1992)  
>  "You're a lousy fucking softball player, Jack!" _A Few Good Men_ (1992)
> 
> Title from "Missing You" by Brand New.
> 
> According to Patrick J Adams, [Mike spent about three weeks in prison](https://twitter.com/halfadams/status/773835288779091968), so call "half a year" a bit of poetic license.
> 
> ETA: I just recognized the "ship" pun in the title, I'm so sorry.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://statusquoergo.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi.


End file.
